Turks, by whom they were kindly received, and the French ambassador at Constantinople took care of them, and shipped them back again into Italy at the king's charge.

But the Duke de Vendôme now took so many German prisoners, that Prince Eugene was tired of sending his prisoners to Hungary, and was obliged to be at the charge of bringing some of them back again, whom he had sent thither, and come to agree to a general exchange of prisoners.

I was, as I have said, allowed for a time to go to Parma, upon my parole, where I continued for the recovery of my wound and broken arm, forty days, and was then obliged to render myself to the commanding officer at Ferrara, where Prince Eugene coming soon after, I was, with several other prisoners of war, sent away into the Milanese, to be kept for an exchange of prisoners.

It was in the city of Trent that I continued about eight months; the man in whose house I quartered was exceedingly civil to me, and took a great deal of care of me, and I lived very easy. Here I contracted a kind of familiarity, perfectly undesigned by me, with the daughter of the burgher at whose house I had lodged, and I know not by what fatality that was upon me, I was prevailed with afterwards to marry her: this was a piece of honesty on my side, which I must acknowledge I never intended to be guilty of: but the girl was too cunning for me, for she found means to get some wine into my head more than I used to drink, and though I was not so disordered with it, but that I knew very well what I did, yet in an unusual height of good humour, I consented to be married. This impolitic piece of honesty put me to many inconveniences, for I knew not what to do with this clog, which I had loaded myself with; I could neither stay with her, or take her with me, so that I was exceedingly perplexed.

The time came soon after that I was released by the cartel, and so was obliged to go to my regiment, which then was in quarters in the Milanese, and from thence I got leave to go to Paris, upon my promise to raise some recruits in England for the Irish regiments, by the help of my correspondence there. Having thus leave to go to Paris, I took a passport from the enemy's army to go to Trent, and making a long circuit, I went back thither, and very honestly packed up my baggage, wife and all, and brought her away through Tyrol,

SELL MY COMPANY, AND JOIN THE FRENCH FLEET. 463

into Bavaria, and so through Suabia and the Black Forest, into Alsatia, from thence I came into Lorraine, and so to Paris.

I had now a secret design to quit the war, for I really had had enough of fighting; but it was counted so dishonourable a thing to quit, while the army was in the field, that I could not dispense with it; but an intervening accident made that part easy to me: the war was now renewed between France and England, and Holland, just as it was before; and the French king meditating nothing more than how to give the English a diversion, fitted out a strong squadron of men-of-war and frigates, at Dunkirk, on board of which he embarked a body of troops, of about six thousand five hundred men, besides volunteers; and the new king, as we called him, though more generally he was called the Chevalier de St. George, was shipped along with them, and all for Scotland.

I pretended a great deal of zeal for this service, and that if I might be permitted to sell my company in the Irish regiment I was in, and have the Chevalier's brevet for a colonel, in case of raising troops for him in Great Britain, after his arrival, I would embark volunteer, and serve at my own expense. The latter gave me a great advantage with the chevalier; for now I was esteemed as a man of consideration, and one that must have a considerable interest in my own country; so I obtained leave to sell my company, and having had a good round sum of money remitted me from London, by the way of Holland, I prepared a very handsome equipage, and away I went to Dunkirk to embark.

I was very well received by the chevalier; and, as he had an account that I was an officer in the Irish brigade, and had served in Italy, and consequently was an old soldier, all this added to the character which I had before, and made me have a great deal of honour paid me, though at the same time I had no particular attachment to his person, or to his cause; nor indeed did I much consider the cause of one side or other; if I had, I should hardly have risked, not my life only, but effects too, which were all, as I might say, from that moment, forfeited to the English government, and were too evidently in their power to confiscate at their pleasure.

However, having just received a remittance from London, of 300%. sterling, and sold my company in the Irish regiment for very near as much, I was not only insensibly drawn in, but was perfectly volunteer in that dull cause, and away I

went with them at all hazards; it belongs very little to my history to give an account of that fruitless expedition, only to tell you, that, being so closely and effectually chased by the English fleet, which was superior in force to the French, I may say, that, in escaping them, I escaped being hanged.

It was the good fortune of the French, that they overshot the port they aimed at, and intending for the frith of Forth, or, as it is called, the frith of Edinburgh, the first land they made was as far north as a place called Montrose, where it was not their business to land, and so they were obliged to come back to the frith, and were gotten to the entrance of it, and came to an anchor for the tide; but this delay or hinderance gave time to the English, under Sir George Bing, to come to the frith, and they came to an anchor, just as we did, only waiting to go up the frith with the flood.

Had we not overshot the port, as above, all our squadron had been destroyed in two days, and all we could have done, had been to have gotten into the pier or haven at Leith, with the smaller frigates, and have landed the troops and ammunition; but we must have set fire to the men-of-war, for the English squadron was not above twenty-four hours behind us, or thereabout.

Upon this surprise, the French admiral set sail from the north point of the frith, where we lay, and, crowding away to the north, got the start of the English fleet, and made their escape, with the loss of one ship only, which being behind the rest, could not get away. When we were satisfied the English left chasing us, which was not till the third night, when we altered our course, and lost sight of them, we stood over to the coast of Norway, and keeping that shore on board all the way to the mouth of the Baltic, we came to an anchor again, and sent two scouts abroad to learn news, to see if the sea was clear, and being satisfied that the enemy did not chase us, we kept on with an easier sail, and came all back again to Dunkirk, and glad I was to set my foot on shore again; for all the while we were thus flying for our lives, I was under the greatest terror imaginable, and nothing but halters and gibbets run in my head, concluding, that if I had been taken, I should certainly have been hanged.

But the care was now over, I took my leave of the chevalier, and of the army, and made haste to Paris.

I

DISAGREEABLE DISCOVERY RELATING TO MY WIFE. 465

came so unexpectedly to Paris, and to my own lodgings, that it was my misfortune to make a discovery, relating to my wife, which was not at all to my satisfaction; for I found her ladyship had kept some company, that I had reason to believe were not such as an honest woman ought to have conversed with, and as I knew her temper, by what I had found of her myself, I grew very jealous and uneasy about her; I must own it touched me very nearly, for I began to have an extraordinary value for her, and her behaviour was very taking, especially after I had brought her into France; but having a vein of levity, it was impossible to prevent her running into such things, in a town so full of what they call gallantry as Paris.

It vexed me also to think that it should be my fate to be a cuckold both abroad and at home, and sometimes I would be in such a rage about it, that I had no government of myself when I thought of it; whole days, and I may say, sometimes whole nights, I spent musing and considering what I should do to her, and especially what I should do to the villain, whoever he was, that had thus abused and supplanted me. Here indeed I committed murder more than once, or indeed than a hundred times, in my imagination; and, as the devil is certainly an apparent prompter to wickedness, if he is not the first mover of it in our minds, he seized me night and day, with proposals to kill my wife.

This horrid project he carried up so high, by raising fierce thoughts, and fomenting the blood upon my contemplation of the word cuckold, that, in short, I left debating whether I should murder her or no, as a thing out of the question, and determined; and my thoughts were then taken up only with the management how I should kill her, and how to make my escape after I had done it.

All this while I had no sufficient evidence of her guilt, neither had I so much as charged her with it, or let her know I suspected her, otherwise than as she might perceive it in my conduct, and in the change of my behaviour to her, which was such, that she could not but perceive that something troubled me, yet she took no notice of it to me, but received me very well, and showed herself to be glad of my return; nor did I find she had been extravagant in her expenses while I was abroad; but jealousy, as the wise man says, is the wrath of a man; her being so good a hussy of

H H

what money I had left her, gave my distempered fancy an opinion that she had been maintained by other people, and so had had no occasion to spend.

I must confess she had a difficult point here upon her, though she had been really honest; for, as my head was prepossessed of her dishonesty, if she had been lavish, I should have said she had spent it upon her gentlemen; and as she had been frugal, I said she had been maintained by them thus, I say, my head was distempered; I believed myself abused, and nothing could put it out of my thoughts night or day.

All this while it was not visibly broken out between us; but I was so fully possessed with the belief of it, that I seemed to want no evidence, and I looked with an evil eye upon everybody that came near her, or that she conversed with. There was an officer of the Guards du Corps, that lodged in the same house with us, a very honest gentleman, and a man of quality; I happened to be in a little drawingroom, adjoining to a parlour where my wife sat at that time, and this gentleman came into the parlour, which, as he was one of the family, he might have done without offence, but he not knowing that I was in the drawing-room, sat down and talked with my wife. I heard every word they said, for the door between us was open, nor could I say that there passed anything between them but cursory discourse; they talked of casual things, of a young lady, a burgher's daughter of nineteen, that had been married the week before to an advocate in the parliament of Paris, vastly rich, and about thirty-six; and of another, a widow lady of fortune in Paris, that had married her deceased husband's valet de chambre, and of such casual matters, that I could find no fault with her now at all.

But it filled my head with jealous thoughts, and fired my temper; now I fancied he used too much freedom with her, then that she used too much freedom to him, and once or twice I was upon the point of breaking in upon them, and affronting them both, but I restrained myself; at length he talked something merrily of the lady throwing away her maidenhead, as I understood it, upon an old man; but still it was nothing indecent; but I, who was all on fire already, could bear it no longer, but started up, and came into the room, and catching at my wife's words, Say you so, madam,